He admitted Work Choices "did go a little too far" and the fairness test was too late.

In the understatement of the century, he confessed the government "could have done more to win over the Australian people".

How to tell friends you like Nickelback:
There are ways around it...

How to tell friends you like Nickelback:
There are ways around it...

But then he claimed he had wanted to change negative gearing all along so it only applied to new homes as an "incentive to add to the housing stock rather than an incentive to speculate on existing property".

Isn't that pretty much what Labor wanted?

The fact Hockey railed whole hog against a negative gearing shake-up smacked of a treasurer more interested in playing politics than applying reforms he believed in.

Same goes for the statement he always thought "tax concessions on superannuation should be carefully pared back".

Maybe he thought he still had time to climb the ladder as Abbott's successor.

He offered no alternatives and slammed the Opposition when it proposed a 15% tax on retirees getting more than $75,000 a year in super.